The Highland Drive congregation has a long history of being committed to nondenominational, New Testament Christianity.  We strive to be Biblical in everything we do.  We endeavor to be balanced without compromising the Truth.  However, we resist an identity based solely on issues; we are Christians only - our identity is focused on Jesus and His great love for mankind, His reverence for all things holy and His complete obedience to salvation.  We face the challenge of doing God's will in the 21st century as we reach out to a lost world, shine as a beacon of light and serve one another in love and humility.  Without love this church would be nothing and so we make it our goal to fulfill Ephesians 4:15-16:  "but Speaking the Truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head -Christ- from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself IN LOVE."

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We want you to visit us at the Highland Drive Church of Christ and to feel comfortable when you come. We know that sometimes an unfamiliar place can be intimidating, so we thought we would take a moment and tell you about what you can expect when you honor us with a visit.

 

The Setting

We meet in a church building on Highland Drive. It may be much more modest than you are use to. When you enter our building, you will enter into our auditorium for worship. There will be rows of pews for the worshipers. There are no reserved seats, so please feel free to sit anywhere you choose.

 

Singing

The services generally begin with singing. You will find hymnbooks on the back of the pew before you. When a song leader announces a number, you can turn to that number in your books and sing along with us.

One of the neat things you will soon discover about our music is that it is all done without any musical instrument accompaniments. We seek to worship according to the New Testament pattern found in Col. 3:16, and since the New Testament leaves instrumental music out, we believe it is best to exclude it. You may consider us narrow on this point, but we believe you will respect our reason behind it. Once you accept our conviction regarding this, we believe you will find the singing very meaningful, with everyone being invited to participate.

 

Prayers

There will be several prayers throughout the service. Some will include prayers on the behalf of our sick and afflicted. Sometimes you will be asked to stand for prayer, and other times you will just bow your head sitting down. Only one man at a time will pray out loud, and we are sure you will find our services very orderly.

 

Preaching

Our preacher does not have a title. He won't be referred to as Pastor or Reverend, because such titles were not found in the New Testament. Some may refer to him as Brother Dustin, but most of us generally know him as Dustin. He won't be wearing any ecclesiastical costume that will set him apart from the rest of us since we believe in the priesthood of all believers. The sermon itself will be about 30 minutes and will be totally Bible based. Sometimes you will find Dustin using a powerpoint projector to highlight his main points, but the message you will hear preached will be one of meat rather than show. We invite and encourage you to open your Bibles and follow along

 

Invitation

At the close of Dustin’s sermon, he will extend an invitation. This is a time to invite those who are moved to do so to make a request for prayer support from the congregation. He will also encourage those who wish to be saved to come forward to confess Christ (Rom. 10:9,10) and be buried with Him in baptism. Don't feel ill at ease during this invitation. You will not be singled out in any way. There may be several that will respond or there may be none. If someone does come forward to be saved, you will witness the baptism during the service. The baptism will be one of total immersion in our baptistry and it will be for the remission of sins (Acts 2:38).

 

Lord's Supper

If you visit us during the Sunday morning service, you will note that before the sermon, we will participate in sharing the Lord's Supper with like-minded believers. We observe this memorial every Sunday as the New Testament church did. During this memorial, plates containing unleavened bread will be passed throughout the congregation. The bread symbolizes the body of Christ that was offered on our behalf. Each participating person will break off a piece of this bread and eat it and then pass on the plate. Next, cups containing grape juice, "the fruit of the vine", will be served. The juice represents the blood of Jesus. Each participant will take one cup from the tray and drink its contents before replacing the cup back into the tray. You will notice that during the time of this memorial, the church will be very quiet as each member prayerfully reflects on their spiritual walk and the great price Christ paid for His followers. (1 Cor. 11:23-28, Mat. 26:26-28)

 

Please, do not feel that you need to participate during this memorial. Feel free to pass on the tray without being embarrassed. No one in our assembly will think any less of you for it.

 

The Offering

Right after the passing of the cup, we will also pass containers to collect the weekly financial offerings of the congregation. We do this at this time for convenience sake and in keeping with the New Testament admonishment to lay up in store the first day of every week (1 Cor. 16:1,2). As our guest, you are not expected to give an offering. Please feel comfortable in just passing the collection plate on down the row.

 

The People

We hope you will find us to be a friendly and warm people. We are a group of various backgrounds and at different stages of knowledge and spiritual growth. We know that we are continually learning and have not arrived at any point of perfection. We make our mistakes and hopefully we learn from them. We are fellow travelers coming together to worship our Father and to encourage each other along the way. We do not claim to have all the answers, but we all know that without Jesus we are nothing. We hope our love for Christ, His body, and the Bible is quite evident to you during your visit.

 

What do we expect from you?

Absolutely nothing! You are welcome to participate, but don't feel obligated to do so. You will be asked to fill out a Visitor's Card. This provides our church with information so that we can write or call to thank you for your visit. It is never shared outside of our church, but if you do not feel comfortable filling out the card, you do not have to. We do hope you will come and visit with us again, and if you have any questions about what you heard or any desire to learn more, we have people who are more than willing to help serve you in that manner.

We do hope you will come and visit us.